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Oil has reached another record level per barrel. Gas is now, or will soon be, $4.00 or more per gallon.

My Big Ole Dodge has a 35 gallon tank.

We're in the $140.00 to $150.00 a tank of gas range. I mean, $150.00 a tank? I pause and reflect.

This thread isn't about policy, or the Middle East, or blaming anyone. Shit happens. You deal with it.

I love to drive. I love to go. I love to go places and see things. I have 3 vehicles. The aforementioned Big Ole Dodge, and two Hondas, an Element and a CRV.

All are 4wd or all-wheel drive. (I live off-road.)

I have parked the Big Ole Dodge. 14 mpg? Nah. She's beautiful, but she's parked. I run her a couple of times per month just to keep everything lubed and working, but she will sit. The price of gas is cramping my admitedly limited sense of style.

The two Hondas get about 30 mpg and 34 mpg, respectively. Not bad.

Remember, this is the Lounge, so I'm not getting deep and serious here about politics and supposed pofiteering or whatever; this is asking about your life and habits. How will your life change if gas goes significantly higher in price?

I remember when I was a kid that whatever vehicle we had carried my parents to work, carried us to town on Saturday and church on Sunday. That was pretty much it. We didn't go out and get pizza on weeknights or rent movies. I rode the bus to school.

And no harm done.

I said "SUV" Saturday because the SUV has become, in the mind of the Left, a bogeyman. The root of all our evil. The gas wasting polluting SUV. A sort of Godzilla on wheels. City folk can afford to think that way. If you live out in the hinterlands, as I do, and the weather and the roads are sometimes an issue, then maybe that fact will be reflected in your choice of vehicles.

I have to go to work, as does my wife. We drive our Hondas to work. Get pretty good mileage. We get about 32 mpg average and drive front-wheeled drive 99.99 percent of the time, and have 4WD when we have snow or mud. (And we have the Big Ole Dodge for when it really gets bad.) We get groceries, go to necessary errands, and beyond that, we just stay home. Even with decent mileage, we are driving less.

I know, I have been rambling, but here's the actual TOTD: If you do have to drive less, what would that mean to your day to day existence? How would you deal with it? What changes would that entail?

I didn't ask about how that would make you feel because at CU I think we actually deal with things, and at DU they talk about how it makes them feel.

This is a little early for Saturday because I have to be at work early on Saturday. And I'm :D

Last day here in France and we're off to the plage at Juan les Pins. Have a 6:00 AM :eek: flight tomorrow.

TOTD: My personal transportation habits are not affected at all by the price of oil. I fly to client sites and then rent a car (unless I'm in a civilized place like London or NYC wherein I can make due with cabs). All my gas is paid for via OPM (the best kind).

Now that we live in Hartford, however, we're in the process of buying a car. Currently, my girlfriend takes a cab to work every day and we rent a car for shopping/traveling on the weekends.

TOTD: I cringe every time I pass by the gas stations near home because where we live the price of unleaded regular is about 5-7 cents higher than in metro Orlando area. Having said that, I drive--round trip--about 60 miles to work and that sucks...but it cannot be helped. Luckily I drive a 4-cyl that gets decent gas mileage...

We haven't really curbed our driving habits because honestly (other than work...and we all need to work) we don't drive that often. Trips, and all that. If we did I would suppose we would have to cut back on that. Last Memorial Day weekend I drove down to see my folks and that sucked because it took $40 to fill up my tank (which is a far cry from the $150 plus to fill some pick-ups or SUV's) and another $20+ to top it off on the return trip home...again, not as bad as some but bad enough.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." H.P. Lovecraft in Supernatural Horror in Literature

It's going to be a glorious Colorado day today. I'm waiting for some warmth and then I'll do bad things to my neighbor's trees. :D

TOTD: It wouldn't affect me. We have only one car - an SUV. I carpool vaguely. I look at car ownership costs in terms of total cost: price, insurance, maintenance, and then gas. It's way cheaper for me to drive my used, nearly paid off Liberty than to invest in a hybrid.

I always multitask my trips and I bike or walk a lot. The extra I'm paying in terms of gas right now is pretty much equivalent to a couple of six packs of decent craft brews. It's not gas or food for me.

It's hot here. I got up at 7 to bake a specialty cake for my grandaughter's birthday party. I had a doll made for herand I am improvising a cake to match. I am the greatest gramma! I keep stopping to re-chill the frosting 'cause it's so warm in the kitchen.

I have tried to cut down on unnecessary trips to the store for a long time. I keep lists so I can do several errands at a time

I crashed one Porsche and got another one (911, this time) just as prices started going through the roof. I hummed and ha'd about the new one, and a lot of that was to do with oil prices.

Fortunately I work from home most of the time. When I travel for work, it's usually cab to airport or train station, plane or train, then either a rental car or another cab to get to wherever I have to be. I live within walking distance to the nearest supermarket, and I walk around a lot. I have a rule about sub 10 mi trips in the car ... unless it's urgent or the weather is bad, I'll walk instead, and I started doing this way before the prices went up.

The 911 gets 32mpg, supposedly, although it doesn't feel like it. It might just get that on a long journey, but not on several shorter ones on the same tankful. (that mpg rating is for the larger UK gallon .. the US measure is quite a bit smaller).

In the end, I figured this might be the last opportunity I have to drive a car like this, so I went for it. I think prices are going to keep going up from now on.

There is plenty of oil out there, but the cost of extracting and refining it is going to be far higher going forward, mostly because it is getting technically more and more difficult to do both of these things.

The OP's original question ... I think that this will start to affect far more than just our ability and willingness to drive. High oil prices are starting to drive up costs of virtually everything that requires petroleum inputs to produce and transport...and that is virtually everything.

We are starting to see this on the two most energy dependent commodities - air transportation and food (and these two are closely interconnected, given the way much of our food is produced and transported.

British Airways have stated that they will ground a sizeable amount of their fleet this winter. Some American carriers are going under. Food prices are climbing globally. Even the MSM cannot avoid this topic any longer.

This ain't gonna be fuckin' Disneyland for much longer. I'm going to make the most of it while I can.

It's hot here. I got up at 7 to bake a specialty cake for my grandaughter's birthday party. I had a doll made for herand I am improvising a cake to match. I am the greatest gramma! I keep stopping to re-chill the frosting 'cause it's so warm in the kitchen.

I have tried to cut down on unnecessary trips to the store for a long time. I keep lists so I can do several errands at a time

I filled up the CRV today for $3.99 per gallon. I can't really say that we will drive dramatically less because most of our travel is necessary. For the immediate future I may only drive the Big Ole Dodge on forestry road excursions every now and then.